Love or loathe UKC their database is a stroke of genius and must be invaluable for Rockfax.
Actually there is, http://www.theshortspan.com/newproblemdatabase/newproblemdatabase.php, it's just for recording new problems but it has been running a few years. Just a few lines of php.
... and it's taken years of effort and no doubt 10s of thousands of pounds to get it to where it is. I use sites such as Peakbouldering.info, but I don't bother logging anything on there.
Key idea here is establishing a common format for the data and this bases? Sounds like something important and over-arching.. BMC?
How many of those had a community attached?There's quite a lot of people on here who are keen about:Peak BoulderingYorkshire BoulderingYorkshire SportPeak SportNorth Wales BoulderingNorth Wales LimeLancashire Boulderingetc etc
I think Bleau.info and UKC have proved a database can and will be maintained mostly by users IF it is useful.
I'm a bit undecided as to whether a tight geographical remit is better than an unlimited one. I suspect it is, at least to start with. There are a bunch of failed or moribund unlimited databases out there already.
- Users are too limited in how they can edit. They can't even delete a duplicate entry for instance, or re-order a butress.
- Users are too limited in how they can edit. They can't...re-order a buttress.
good, thought out and valid points Bonjoy, particularly the aspect of designing something that expands beyond a given region (and theres no actual reason why either peakbouldering.info or yorkshiregrit.com or any of the other existing sites in their present format couldn't be expanded to include additional areas).The one thing I would add/say is...Quote from: Bonjoy on January 07, 2014, 08:15:33 pm- Users are too limited in how they can edit. They can't even delete a duplicate entry for instance, or re-order a butress.Careful thought should be given to how much users can edit. Things can get very messy, very quickly if users have free for-all to change everything. UKC have volunteer moderators for crags and I think this is a really useful thing since it engenders a sense of responsibility and care for the write-up of their local haunt, and if any resource were to be developed as a consequence of this thread I think it would benefit from this too. Primarily because they might be more familiar with their local crag than a visitor who added an entry with some inaccuracies.
Quote from: Bonjoy on January 07, 2014, 08:15:33 pm- Users are too limited in how they can edit. They can't...re-order a buttress.Actually that one has been fixed. Progress is slow, but Gareth is still keen to improve peakbouldering.info. Hopefully at some point it will do all the things we want it to. I realise it has been years in the making and has its flaws, but even as it stands I think it's a great resource and seems to be well used.
Agree. Two tiers of user updaters should solve that one. UKC effectively have this with the crag moderators and standard inputers. Yeah otherwise a malicious user could come in one night and delete half the DB.
Periodic and automatic database back ups would be easy to organise and implement to avoid malicious deletions.
Tiered user access rights is definitely the way to go. Periodic and automatic database back ups would be easy to organise and implement to avoid malicious deletions.
@jp2598 hi, was wondering if lack of funds is why you've wound up http://yorkshiregrit.com ? would you consider others taking over the site?
I tweeted Jon on Tuesday 2013-01-07 @ 09:58...Quote@jp2598 hi, was wondering if lack of funds is why you've wound up http://yorkshiregrit.com ? would you consider others taking over the site?No reply yet (not that that means anything).
Francis did actually reply and said he and Jon were both aware of this thread, but neither intended responding.
Was happy to come to a financial agreement re: the data as well